World Beer Cup, Thai Cooking & Nepalese Ginger

I will start this week by announcing that the All Things Ginger website is back again after changing our hosting ISP and domain registrar. At the time it felt as traumatic as moving house but, on reflection, it wasn't that bad.

Congratulations to the Hardywood Park Craft Brewery for winning a bronze medal in the Herb & Spice Beer category at the 2012 World Beer Cup for its Hardywood Gingerbread Stout. The brewery, from Richmond in Virginia, brewed the imperial milk stout with fresh local ginger and honey. If you think that 'fresh local ginger' is a mistake, think again. Ginger cultivation is becoming quite popular in Virginia, albeit under cover. The ginger used in this beer is grown locally at Casselmonte Farm. The brewery's own page for the beer contains a You Tube video about the making of the beer.

If you like to read business and company histories, you'll find this Morning Advertiser article about Hartridges, the soft-drinks company, particularly interesting. I read it because Hartridges makes a lovely ginger beer which my wife describes as the best she has ever tasted.

Australia is interested in investing in Pakistan's agriculture sector, according to the Pakistan Agriculture blog. Although the post didn't contain any specifics, I would imagine that Australia is interested in ginger. Consumption of ginger in Australia is increasing but domestic production is limited. Last year, Pakistan exported 18 tonnes of ginger to Australia compared with 28 tonnes from Indonesia. But, significantly, the ginger from Pakistan was nearly two-thirds cheaper.

Thai cooking is very popular in the UK. You can find a wide range of Thai recipe books in many bookshops. Thai restaurants are established in many towns and cities. Now you can read about Thai ginger cooking in Thailand itself in the Chiangrai Times.

I've been reading an interesting USAID report from last year on the ginger sector in Nepal. I knew already that ginger is an important crop, particularly as an export commodity to India. What I didn't know is that the unit cost of ginger exported to India is considerably cheaper that the unit cost of ginger imported from India. Is the quality of Indian ginger superior?

The USAID report states that the major competitors of Nepalese ginger are Assam, Bangalore, Tibet and the internationally famous Cochin. Stiff competition indeed but I've never heard of Tibetan ginger. Can anyone help?

I also discovered from the report that ginger comes top of the list of spices grown in Nepal in terms of land use and production. In fact, ginger production is nearly twice that of garlic, turmeric, chilli and cardamon combined. I wonder if the Australians have considered this as a potential source?

To finish this week, here is a You Tube video of a ginger harvest in Andhra Pradesh, India. Unfortunately, it is not in English but it is still very watchable.